Cryptocurrency wallet providers are getting more sophisticated, but so are bad actors — which means the battle between security and threats is at a deadlock, says a hardware wallet firm executive.

“It will always be a cat and mouse game,” Ledger chief experience officer Ian Rogers told Cointelegraph when describing the constant race between crypto wallet firms adding new security features and hackers finding more advanced ways to access victims’ wallets.

Rogers said, unfortunately, the most straightforward scams work best because scammers rely on people making simple mistakes.

“People give their 24-word phrases to people every day, so as long as that happens, then they are going to go for the low-cost tax,” he said, adding:

“Anyone who asks for your 24 words is a criminal.”

Rogers highlighted a common

Rogers emphasized that this will always be the case, just as bad actors aren’t limited to crypto — scams like fake emails from the “Nigerian president” have been around for years.

“The cost of the attack is always commensurate with the size of the prize, right?” Rogers said. In 2024, crypto hacks jumped 15% from 2023, with over $3 billion stolen.

Related: Hacker steals $8.4M from RWA restaking protocol Zoth

Meanwhile, pig butchering scams have emerged as one of the most pervasive threats to crypto investors, with losses on the Ethereum network costing the industry $5.5 billion across 200,000 identified cases in 2024.

Pig butchering is a type of phishing scheme that involves prolonged and complex manipulation tactics to trick investors into willingly sending their assets to fraudulent crypto addresses.

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